There’s an old saying in sport that goes something like…”A week is a very long time”.
In the real estate industry, it seems like an eternity at the moment as the information is rapidly changing and can be a little hard to keep up with at times.
Following last weeks’ blog where I shared with you some media surrounding the speculation of the abolishment of Stamp Duty in exchange for a form of land tax, there’s been solid murmurings in New South Wales that this proposal will be supported on both sides of Parliament so it will be interesting to see if these changes are made.
Without trying to be negative, you can bet that any elimination of one tax will almost certainly be replaced with a tax that is designed to increase revenue…particularly when Stamp Duty is the flagship revenue raiser for almost every State and Territory Government in Australia.
Will it stimulate the property market and be the ‘white knight in shining armour’ that some are predicting? It will be interesting to watch.
Back on our side of the border (and there’s every reason for you to question why in my right mind would I start by talking about New South Wales before Queensland), there’s been some confusion about whether we (as agents) can commence the facilitation of open homes.
To summarise 5 days of mayhem, the Chief Health Officer in Queensland Health put out a press release late last week advising that open homes were again allowed – the problem was that the Office of Fair Trading and the Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) were taken by surprise as this ruling flew in the face of what was expected to be announced.
The assumption was made by the REIQ that Queensland Health meant to say ‘Private inspections’ rather than ‘Open Homes’ – which was the term that was referred to in the release.
Clarification was obtained yesterday and we are pleased to let you know that open homes are officially now allowed to be conducted in Queensland…albeit with a few changes that are necessary given the health restrictions that are currently in place.
The first rule is that there is to be no more than 6 people including the real estate agent (that’s 6 people – not 6 groups of people) in a property at any one point in time.
Second, third and fourth rules set down are really nothing new – safe distancing, hand sanitisers be made available, don’t hug the agent as you walk through (I’m sure you’ll be disappointed about that)…et cetera, et cetera.
Looking at this from our eyes, this is a wonderful ruling that will undoubtedly bring more buyers out to purchase but on the other hand, it’s a logistical nightmare.
We need to carefully analyse how many enquiries we’re currently receiving on all of our properties for sale and try to ‘second guess’ the number of buyers that might turn up to have a look.
As such, we need to estimate how long to keep each property open in order to ensure that we’re able to allow buyers to legally and safely inspect the property that they’ve come to see…all whilst working in with sellers (and particularly tenants at some of our properties) to ensure that we’re not overstaying our welcome before they start charging us rent (the rent part was a joke).
Furthermore, it’s not a great way to set up a negotiation if we keep a property open for two hours with only group coming through.
If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m a huge believer that an open home can be the best way to showcase how much interest is in a property…and it can the worst way to showcase how much interest isn’t in a property.
We don’t want a scenario where a buyer might turn up for a look and not lay eyes on anyone else in the entire time that they’re there.
On the other hand, if an open home does happen to run overtime and everyone is patiently playing ‘Eye Spy’ with their kids in the front yard whilst waiting to enter, we need to ensure that we have enough time to get to the next open home on our schedule.
I must admit…I’ve never experienced this sort of guessing game given we’ve never seen restrictions like this before.
We’re asking ourselves….
“Will half of Brisbane turn up because they have nothing better to do…or will people stay away because they don’t want to risk catching this dreadful illness?”
“Does the ‘pent-up’ desire to inspect at a fever-pitch (given many buyers haven’t been able to see all of the properties they’ve wanted to see on a Saturday for around 6 weeks)…or do people even realize there’s been this change in legislation and we agents will all be standing around playing ‘Eye Spy’ on our own?”
The truth is that we have no idea.
As an agent, there are some properties that hit the market and attract few enquiries but many buyers might attend the open homes and there are those that are quite the opposite…and given we haven’t run a single open home on many of our properties (most have been recently listed for sale within the past 6 weeks), it’s anyone’s guess what actually happens.
Normally we’d split the open homes over the Saturday and the Sunday but this Sunday is Mother’s Day and traditionally, a very unlikely day for buyers to be out and about.
One thing’s for sure – it’s going to be a very long day for us on Saturday!
I can almost taste that nice cold ‘Stone & Wood’ waiting for me when I get home already.
I know what you’re thinking – here’s another week that Michael has promised to continue his topic ‘Tips On Selling In A Challenging Market’ but again, I felt this legislation needed to be shared.
I’ll keep you in suspense for another week.
Lastly, we wish all of our Mum’s a Very Happy Mother’s Day this Sunday.
If you’re like me, you haven’t seen much of your Mother lately (for those of us that are lucky enough to have our Mums still with us) so it will again be a strange old Mother’s Day but hopefully we can impart on our Mothers, Grandmothers, Wives and Partners exactly how much they mean to us and how lucky we are to have them in our lives.
May every Mother that reads this blog have a truly wonderful day and thank you so much for all that you do for us.
Until next week…Happy Listing and Happy Selling.